Improving, need to set goals

Have been keeping a diary, noting what I thought I did good and bad in each session. Also note buyin, rebuys if any, time played and what I cashed out. I make a little paragraph below discussing the session, and at the bottom of the page I write what my biggest problem was so when I rifle thru the diary I can track my main leaks.


My main leak was playing too loose before the flop, and sometimes it was passivity. I used to keep a list of goals for the next session but I think I tried to accomplish too much each time. Last night I decided to simply focus on pre-flop play and make sure to keep a good eye on executing my play with regard to position. It worked, leak plugged.


My question is: where to go from there? I have many things I'd like to work on, but no idea what the best order to tackle the stuff is. Areas for improvement:


- position adjustments

- passivity, especially pre-flop

- the turn

- reading hands

- image (I think I come off too serious)

- first 15" (when I sit down at the table takes me a little while to get into the swing, and I make mistakes as I get up to speed)

- shorthanded play (7 players or less)

- paying attention to the other players

- looking for and interpreting tells


For what it's worth I'm not bleeding huge numbers of chips, rather I simply want to save/win a few more bets per session with the above. Right now I'm under 200 hours running nearly 1BB/hr, with some wicked variance I believe is due to the loose-aggressive games I tend to find myself in.


What I want is a gameplan for working on goals. Any suggestions, what works for y'all?

I enjoyed Mike Caro's 12 Days to Hold'em Success. Give you a goal to focus on before each session and it is about $20. By the way, I have a home game in the SL area already. I was trying to find a new game that I did not have to host every week. Land of the Mormons . . . not very many card players. /images/smile.gif

here's some thoughts..


1 - first 15" (when I sit down at the table takes me a little while to get into the swing, and I make mistakes as I get up to speed)


this should be the easiest....get the feel of the table, just play premium until you get the texture of the game. then adjust accordingly.


2 - position adjustments


work on position hands and plays


3 - passivity, especially pre-flop


relatively easy to vary.

sometimes depending on the game you can get away with being passive, but i think the better way is to be aggressive. make it expensive for them to play with you. they may not know what your raising with after awhile...


4 - the turn


turn play is very important since it sets up river play. which also leads into:


5 - reading hands


the better you can read, youll know how far to take your hand. this will help deviate from book plays a little. and youll see spots open for bluffs and deception plays.


6 - paying attention to the other players


this could be with tells. but here's an aspect overlooked a little by some players. by watching how others play their hands, and seeing whether they change up their play, you can use it against them. for example, if they always play a draw the same way, , you can play a bluff the same way, and it'll look like a draw to them. especially if the draw *appears* to get there. ....see the potential


7 - shorthanded play (7 players or less)


5 handed is great. love it. money maker. start by studying HPFAP section. and the feeney book. play religiously until ya learn the betting. its a little different and a lot more aggressive. when i first started shorthanded, i just limped and played from the flop just to get used to the hands. then worked on my pre play after.


8 - looking for and interpreting tells


once you have the mechanics down, then go more for the tells. it really does give ya something else to watch. even when your not in the hand


9 - image (I think I come off too serious)


many players at first overrate this. but its more cosmetic. you can be winning without even worrying about iimage. without knowing the basics theyre worried about their image. on many LL tables, they wont notice anyway. the ones who may notice will be watching your play and making judgement there. once you have the above down, then work on altering images. at first your image will take care of itself. as you raise limits, the gains from image can be greater...IMO


this is the order and reasons i would use...

i find it easier to concentrate on 1 at a time. some payers can do it all at once. whichever works for ya


just some ideas....

hope this helps


b

My main leak was playing too loose before the flop, and sometimes it was passivity. I used to keep a list of goals for the next session but I think I tried to accomplish too much each time. Last night I decided to simply focus on pre-flop play and make sure to keep a good eye on executing my play with regard to position. It worked, leak plugged.


My question is: where to go from there? I have many things I'd like to work on, but no idea what the best order to tackle the stuff is. Areas for improvement:


- position adjustments

- passivity, especially pre-flop

- the turn

- reading hands

- image (I think I come off too serious)

- first 15" (when I sit down at the table takes me a little while to get into the swing, and I make mistakes as I get up to speed)

- shorthanded play (7 players or less)

- paying attention to the other players

- looking for and interpreting tells


For what it's worth I'm not bleeding huge numbers of chips, rather I simply want to save/win a few more bets per session with the above. Right now I'm under 200 hours running nearly 1BB/hr, with some wicked variance I believe is due to the loose-aggressive games I tend to find myself in.


What I want is a gameplan for working on goals. Any suggestions, what works for y'all?

Gomez,


"My main leak was playing too loose before the flop, and sometimes it was passivity. ... Last night I decided to simply focus on pre-flop play and make sure to keep a good eye on executing my play with regard to position. It worked, leak plugged."


I think it'd be more accurate to say, 'It worked, I learned it is possible for me to plug my preflop leaks for one session.'


"My question is: where to go from there?"


Back to whatever mental gadgetry that got you in the mindset to play a preflop-leakless session. It's mighty rare when leaks get permanently plugged, especially on the first try.


"Areas for improvement: - passivity, especially pre-flop"


That's the easiest one to fix if you really want to. It's so simple. Do not ever put a chip in before the flop without raising except with bad hands from the button or good but not great hands from the big blind (facing a raise) or the small blind (with no raise.)


You're two off the button and three people limp and you pick up 10-9 or A-10 or any pair. Everything inside says limp along. Don't do it! I'm not saying that it's a bad play to limp here. I'm saying it's not bad to raise either. And if you want to stop limping, just pull the trigger, or fold. Pretend you are not allowed to call before the flop, just for one night, just to get into what it feels like to take charge.


This approach sounds like it invites frenzy. Just the opposite is true. By remaining bound to pump-or-dump, I toss away hand after hand that others play from the first five seats or so because the hands don't look or feel strong enough to raise with, meaning my ONLY other option is to fold.


If you do go with the pump-or-dump, here's what'll happen. You'll find yourself in brand new situations after the flop over and over and over. Unexplored terrain. That'll cause discomfort and that'll cause mistakes. Don't let that expected discomfort make you think that the money is being lost solely because of the preflop raises.


Tommy

"I think it'd be more accurate to say, 'It worked, I learned it is possible for me to plug my preflop leaks for one session.'"


Yes, much more accurate. I realized I had made a brash generalization when I typed my thought there.


I believe I will continue to focus primarily on pre-flop play as that's what gets me into trouble on later streets if I botch it.


The problem is that I play in games of vastly different textures: from short-handed tight-aggressive games to full tables gone wild with quadruple straddles, and even your basic loose-passive typical low limit tables. Adjusting has been difficult for this newcomer, but I think a good portion of my trouble spots will be eliminated simply by adjusting my starting hands and how I play them from each position in these different textures.


Perhaps I will alternate goals each session using pre-flop play every other time: pre-flop, reading hands, pre-flop, position, pre-flop... I'm building a nice bankroll and would like to eventually move up to 10-20, but my skills and discipline should improve first.

first, you need an overall statement, eg


"i wanna be the best limit holdem player i can be"


then set specific, measurable objectives that are consistent with this statement


strive to achieve these


periodically re-evaluate the effectiveness of your fixes for each objective, and its relevance to your statement

The pump or dump thing is good as an exercise. But I don't believe in adopting it as your standard approach. It's too one dimensional to use all the time. It can be easily exploited if it means raising with some hands that are playable but not really worth a raise. If it means playing tighter, and only playing hands that *are* worth a raise, it justs costs you the profits of hands you could have played otherwise (but folded). Good exercise though.